Vacation, Wolf Creek 2 February 2010

Erm… so I’ve been bad about the whole Sunday/Thursday posting thing, this time because after trivia I left my laptop in the car ten minutes from the apartment and wasn’t about to jump on the bus just for a blog post. But everything’s back together now, so I can can finally sit down to work on the entry about Wolf Creek. If you’d been expecting an ecstatic outpouring of love for that ski area, I apologise — it rates as merely very good, probably better with a the fair bit of snow it usually receives.

Mostly, though, it’s the San Juans that impress because the differ so markedly from the mountains up here in Summit County. That’s not just geology babbly (although that counts for something). The beetle kill hasn’t reached the area and red rock cliff bands under the snow look like something out of 3:10 to Yuma. And you’ve seen that move, right? The surrounding towns look more or less stuck in that era. Plus there’s a Dairy Queen! At any rate, they generate an atmosphere a thousand times removed from Summit County’s glitz and corporate varnish. Breck cherishes its status as a “real” mountain town, but it’s places like Alamosa, Saguache and Monte Vista that capture what rural America has become. They are a story of dilapidation, stultification. A slow, inevitable slide toward obsolescence.

And in the middle of all that cheer, or, really, 2000 feet above it, lies Wolf Creek, so before I get too involved in any more depression about small town Colorado, I’ll stop for some pictures. Wolf Creek is worth the visit, especially on one of several days each year when it receives multiple feet of powder. Right then, on days like that, I imagine few resorts in Colorado offer better skiing. The mostly unmaintained terrain allows skiers to make their own runs through the trees creating that feeling of discovery impossible at a place like Breck. Check out the fun.